Betting can be generally defined as an activity where a number of participants try to predict the outcome of a certain well-defined incident, such as e.g. a sports event, an election or simply the arbitrary drawing of a small group of numbers or other symbols (in the latter case the terms “lotto” or “lottery” are more commonly used than “betting”). Typically placing a bet means putting down a certain sum of money or other commodity of value, so that those who succeeded in predicting the outcome of the incident in question get their investment back with a certain profit that is financed from the collected stakes of the unsuccessful participants. An important feature of betting is that all bets must be placed before a certain time instant after which it would be possible to know the result or anticipate it with an increased level of certainty.
In a manual betting system where all bets must be placed before an officer of the organiser of the game it is easy to take care of the timing aspects of betting. The counter which accepts the bets closes at the moment after which no more bets are accepted, and opens again for paying the profits after the outcome of the incident is known. In electronic betting arrangements the situation is somewhat more complicated.
FIG. 1 illustrates a known system for so-called online betting where bets can be placed basically anywhere where a suitable communication connection exists. The system comprises a number of betting terminals, of which 101, 102, and 103 are shown. A communications network 104 links the terminals to the premises 105 of the organiser of the game. A central database 106 is provided there for storing the bets. A hot backup database 107 duplicates all operations made in the main database 106, and a cold backup database 108 is ready to replace any of the main or hot backup databases in a case of a detected failure. The purpose of using at least one backup database is to ensure that the probability of losing information due to an eventual failure in the main database is sufficiently low. Schematically shown in FIG. 1 as 109 are means for figuratively cutting the connection between the database 106 and the network 104 as a response to a certain clock signal.
In the system of FIG. 1 there is, in addition to the players and the organiser, also a third party 110, which is typically a governmental supervisory body. The third party has its own database 111 for storing yet another backup copy of the betting information or at least some summarising information thereof. A communications connection 112 links the third party's database 111 to the main database 106 of the organiser. The communications connection 112 could also go through the communications network 104. The task of the third party is to enhance the players' confidence to the game by ensuring that the organiser does not modify the bets after they have been placed.
The operation of the system of FIG. 1 is illustrated in FIG. 2. At step 201 a player places a bet at one of the terminals. The terminal transmits the bet in electronic form 202 through the communications network to the main database, where it is received and stored at step 203. The main database acknowledges the reception and storing of the bet by transmitting an acknowledgement message 204 to the terminal. The hot backup database stores copies of the bet and the acknowledgement message at step 205 at the latest; duplication to the hot backup database may also take place immediately after each single receive, store and/or transmit operation occurring in the main database. As a proof of the placed bet the terminal prints a receipt 206 to the user. The steps 203, 204, 205 and 206 constitute a so-called transaction: they must all succeed or all fail together. Otherwise the system might end up in a state where there exist different conceptions of who has or may have obligations to whom.
After a certain moment of time, which in FIG. 2 is designated as 207, no more bets are accepted, meaning that all eventual later attempts of transmitting bets from the terminals to the main database would be turned down by the latter. In the arrangement of FIG. 1 this means that the cutting means 109 are used to isolate the main database from the connections to the terminals. At step 208 the main database composes a summary of all legally placed bets, which it transmits at step 209 to the third party's backup database. After that the actual incident that was the object of betting may begin at step 210.
After a later time instant 211 when the outcome of the incident has become known, the winning players may collect their profits. At step 212 the player of FIG. 2 presents his receipt to the terminal. At step 213 the terminal transmits to the main database a request for an authorisation for paying out the profit. The main database must ensure that no profit is paid out more than once, so at step 214 it marks the bet for which the request was made as paid. At step 215 it transmits the authorisation message to the terminal. Copies of the request and authorisation messages are stored into the hot backup database at step 216. After having received the authorisation the terminal pays the profit to the player at step 217. Steps 214, 215, 216 and 217 constitute again a transaction.
The use of electronic money and electronically maintained accounts may cause some changes to the system of FIG. 1 and the method of FIG. 2. In one alternative embodiment of known electronic betting the organiser maintains, together with the databases described above, a player database where each player has a playing account. In that case the player does not need to pay his bets at the terminal: he only instructs the organiser to deduct the price of his bet(s) from his account. After the incident the organiser may automatically credit the accounts of those players the bets of which entitled them to profits.
A feature common to all known electronic betting systems is their relative slowness in receiving the bets. Large betting systems must accept even tens of millions of bets concerning a single incident. Even when very fast communications and storage technology are used, there exists a limit for the rate at which the bets can be communicated and stored into the central database. This feature has limited the applicability of the whole principle of betting to incidents which are objects of betting that are themselves rather large and long lasting, like a complete football game or a complete horse race. With the prior art arrangements of the above-described kind it is not possible to realise for example a situation where, in the middle of football world cup finals, the result of a corner kick would suddenly be declared an object of betting. In that case all bets should be placed during the 15 seconds or so that it takes from the referee's whistle to the moment when the player's foot hits the ball at the corner flag.